Human Rights Education Using the California State Curriculum Standards

Todd Jennings, Ph.D.

California State University, San Bernardino

Human Rights Education

Human rights education should enable students to know their human rights and the rights of others (as operationalized through U.N. instruments such as the UDHR)

Human rights education should prepare students to analyze (read) history and the contemporary world (including their own immediate social contexts) using their knowledge of human rights

Human rights education should promote the skills and dispositions needed to make decisions and take actions which protect and promote human rights

Issues

Human Rights Education is often seen to compete with the CA State Standards for time

Human Rights Education is often seen as competing with the CA Standards for content

Realities HRE is not just an “add on” HRE does not take K-12 students away from

their study of the state standards HRE can help K-12 students understand the

standards better HRE can help K-12 students relate the standards

to their private and public lives HRE can enhance the meaning K-12 students

associate with the standards to increase their motivation and/or decrease their resistance

So How Do You Do It?

1. Examine the standards

2. Ask: What are the concepts or themes within the standards that might be human rights related or that I could conceptualize as a human rights issue?

3. Use on-line resources to locate lessons or activities related to the concepts or themes you identified within the standard

Note: In some cases you may wish to reverse this process, starting with the lesson and then finding an appropriate standard.

The California Standards

Content Standards for California Classrooms

http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/

Explicit H.R.E. Standards (10th Grade)

10.3.1 Describe the contributions of various religious groups to American civic principles and social reform movements (e.g., civil and human rights, individual responsibility and the work ethic, antimonarchy and self-rule, worker protection, family-centered communities).

10.5.5 Discuss human rights violations and genocide, including the Ottoman government’s actions against Armenian citizens.

10.7.2 Trace Stalin’s rise to power in the Soviet Union and the connection between economic policies, political policies, the absence of a free press, and systematic violations of human rights (e.g., the Terror Famine in Ukraine).

Explicit H.R.E. Standards (11th and 12th Grades)

11.9.1 Discuss the establishment of the United Nations and International Declaration of Human Rights, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and their importance in shaping modern Europe and maintaining peace and international order.

12.9.1 Explain how the different philosophies and structures of feudalism, mercantilism, socialism, fascism, communism, monarchies, parliamentary systems, and constitutional liberal democracies influence economic policies, social welfare policies, and human rights practices.

Opportunities (1st Grade)

1.1 Students describe the rights and individual responsibilities of citizenship.

1.1.1 Understand the rule-making process in a direct

democracy (everyone votes on the rules) and in a representative democracy (an elected group of people make the rules), giving examples of both systems in their classroom, school, and community.

1.1.2 Understand the elements of fair play and good sportsmanship, respect for the rights and opinions of others, and respect for rules by which we live, including the meaning of the “Golden Rule.”

Opportunities (2nd Grade) 2.3.1 Explain how the United States and other

countries make laws, carry out laws, determine whether laws have been violated, and punish wrongdoers.

2.3.2 Describe the ways in which groups and nations interact with one another to try to resolve problems in such areas as trade, cultural contacts, treaties, diplomacy, and military force.

2.4.1 Describe food production and consumption long ago and today, including the roles of farmers, processors, distributors, weather, and land and water resources.

Opportunities (2nd Grade) 2.5 Students understand the importance of

individual action and character and explain how heroes from long ago and the recent past have made a difference in others' lives (e.g., from biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Louis Pasteur, Sitting Bull, George Washington Carver, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Golda Meir, Jackie Robinson, Sally Ride).

Opportunities (3rd Grade)

3.4.2 Discuss the importance of public virtue and the role of citizens, including how to participate in a classroom, in the community, and in civic life.

3.4.6 Describe the lives of American heroes who

took risks to secure our freedoms (e.g., Anne Hutchinson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Jr.).

Opportunities (4th Grade)

4.2.3 Describe the Spanish exploration and colonization of California, including the relationships among soldiers, missionaries, and Indians (e.g., Juan Crespi, Junipero Serra, Gaspar de Portola).

4.3.4 Study the lives of women who helped build

early California (e.g., Biddy Mason).

Opportunities (4th Grade) 4.4.1 Understand the story and lasting influence of

the Pony Express, Overland Mail Service, Western Union, and the building of the transcontinental railroad, including the contributions of Chinese workers to its construction.

4.4.3 Discuss immigration and migration to California between 1850 and 1900, including the diverse composition of those who came; the countries of origin and their relative locations; and conflicts and accords among the diverse groups (e.g., the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act).

4.4.8 Describe the history and development of California's public education system, including universities and community colleges.

Opportunities (5th Grade)

5.3.3 Examine the conflicts before the Revolutionary War (e.g., the Pequot and King Philip's Wars in New England, the Powhatan Wars in Virginia, the French and Indian War).

5.3.4 Discuss the role of broken treaties and massacres and the factors that led to the Indians defeat, including the resistance of Indian nations to encroachments and assimilation (e.g., the story of the Trail of Tears).

5.3.5 Describe the internecine Indian conflicts, including the competing claims for control of lands (e.g., actions of the Iroquois, Huron, Lakota [Sioux]).

Opportunities (5th Grade)

5.4.4 Identify the significance and leaders of the First Great Awakening, which marked a shift in religious ideas, practices, and allegiances in the colonial period, the growth of religious toleration, and free exercise of religion.

5.4.6 Describe the introduction of slavery into America, the responses of slave families to their condition, the ongoing struggle between proponents and opponents of slavery, and the gradual institutionalization of slavery in the South.

Opportunities (5th Grade)

5.5.1 Understand how political, religious, and economic ideas and interests brought about the Revolution (e.g., resistance to imperial policy, the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, taxes on tea, Coercive Acts).

5.6.7 Understand how the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence changed the way people viewed slavery.

Opportunities (10th Grade)

10.2.2 List the principles of the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights (1689), the American Declaration of Independence (1776), the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789), and the U.S. Bill of Rights (1791).

10.3.4 Trace the evolution of work and labor, including the demise of the slave trade and the effects of immigration, mining and manufacturing, division of labor, and the union movement.

10.4.1 Describe the rise of industrial economies and their link to

imperialism and colonialism (e.g., the role played by national security and strategic advantage; moral issues raised by the search for national hegemony, Social Darwinism, and the missionary impulse; material issues such as land, resources, and technology).

Opportunities (10th Grade)

10.4.3 Explain imperialism from the perspective of the colonizers and the colonized and the varied immediate and long-term responses by the people under colonial rule.

10.8.4 Analyze the Nazi policy of pursuing racial purity, especially against the European Jews; its transformation into the Final Solution; and the Holocaust that resulted in the murder of six million Jewish civilians.

10.9.8 Discuss the establishment and work of the

United Nations and the purposes and functions of the Warsaw Pact, SEATO, NATO, and the Organization of American States.

Opportunities (11th Grade)

11.2.1 Know the effects of industrialization on living and working conditions, including the portrayal of working conditions and food safety in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.

11.2.2 Describe the changing landscape, including the growth of

cities linked by industry and trade, and the development of cities divided according to race, ethnicity, and class.

11.5.2 Analyze the international and domestic events, interests, and philosophies that prompted attacks on civil liberties, including the Palmer Raids, Marcus Garvey’s “back-to-Africa” movement, the Ku Klux Klan, and immigration quotas and the responses of organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Anti-Defamation League to those attacks.

Opportunities (11th Grade)

11.5.4 Analyze the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment and the changing role of women in society.

11.5.5 Describe the Harlem Renaissance and new trends in literature, music, and art, with special attention to the work of writers (e.g., Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes).

Opportunities (11th Grade)

11.8.2 Describe the significance of Mexican immigration and its relationship to the agricultural economy, especially in California.

11.8.8 Discuss forms of popular culture, with emphasis on their origins and geographic diffusion (e.g., jazz and other forms of popular music, professional sports,

architectural and artistic styles).

Opportunities (11th Grade) 11.6.3 Discuss the human toll of the Depression, natural

disasters, and unwise agricultural practices and their effects on the depopulation of rural regions and on political movements of the left and right, with particular attention to the Dust Bowl refugees and their social and economic impacts in California.

11.7.5 Discuss the constitutional issues and impact of events on the U.S. home front, including the internment of Japanese Americans (e.g., Fred Korematsu v. United States of America) and the restrictions on German and Italian resident aliens; the response of the administration to Hitler’s atrocities against Jews and other groups; the roles of women in military production; and the roles and growing political demands of African Americans.

Opportunities (11th Grade) 11.9.7 Examine relations between the United States and

Mexico in the twentieth century, including key economic, political, immigration, and environmental issues.

11.10 Students analyze the development of federal civil rights and voting rights.

11.11.3 Describe the changing roles of women in society as reflected in the entry of more women into the labor force and the changing family structure.

11.11.5 Trace the impact of, need for, and controversies associated with environmental conservation, expansion of the national park system, and the development of environmental protection laws, with particular attention to the interaction between environmental protection advocates and property rights advocates.

Opportunities (12th Grade)

12.1.6 Understand that the Bill of Rights limits the powers of the federal government and state governments.

12.2 Students evaluate and take and defend positions on the scope and limits of rights and obligations as democratic citizens, the relationships among them, and how they are secured.

12.3.1 Explain how civil society provides opportunities for individuals to associate for social, cultural, religious, economic, and political purposes.

Opportunities (12th Grade)

12.2.1 Discuss the meaning and importance of each of the rights guaranteed under the Bill of Rights and how each is secured (e.g., freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, petition, privacy).

12.3.1 Explain how civil society provides opportunities for individuals to associate for social, cultural, religious, economic, and political purposes.

Opportunities (12th Grade) 12.10 Students formulate questions about and defend their

analyses of tensions within our constitutional democracy and the importance of maintaining a balance between the following concepts: majority rule and individual rights; liberty and equality; state and national authority in a federal system; civil disobedience and the rule of law; freedom of the press and the right to a fair trial; the relationship of religion and government.

12.3.1 Understand how the role of government in a market economy often includes providing for national defense, addressing environmental concerns, defining and enforcing property rights, attempting to make markets more competitive, and protecting consumers’ rights.

12.4.1 Understand the operations of the labor market, including the circumstances surrounding the establishment of principal American labor unions, procedures that unions use to gain benefits for their members, the effects of unionization, the minimum wage, and unemployment insurance.

HRE Lesson Plans and Materials

Human Rights Education Associates: http://www.hrea.org/erc/Library/index.php

Internet Link for Human Rights Here and Now: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/edumat/hreduseries/hereandnow/Default.htm

The University of Minnesota Human Rights Library: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/

Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights: http://www.mnadvocates.org/General_human_rights_education_links_for_teachers.html

Amnesty International: http://www.amnestyusa.org/education/ Compass:

http://www.hrea.org/erc/Library/display.php?doc_id=1468&category_id=6&category_type=3&group=